(1) Field of the Invention
This invention generally relates to a tubular acoustic damping pipe cover to be used on a pipe for a water supply/drainage system or air-conditioning system of a building, which is lightweight and excellent in manipulation and acoustical damping performance.
(2) Background Art
There are ever increasing demands of late for a quieter water supply/drainage system backed by general demands for quieter living environments.
There has been introduced a multi-layered acoustic damping structure comprising a sound insulation layer such as an asphaltic sheet and a sound absorptive layer such as a sheet-like air cushion bag, glass wool sheet or felt sheet.
In order to improve the acoustic damping performance of such an acoustic damping structure, it has been conventionally attempted to increase the material density per area (to be referred to as "area density" throughout the specification and claims for convenience) of the sound insulation layer and/or the thickness of the sound absorptive layer.
To conventionally provide the sound insulation layer with a sufficient sound insulation property, the area density of the sound insulation layer need be 5.0-10.0 kg/m2 or over, which will make the sound insulation layer too heavy to conveniently handle and too thick to be used conventionally on a water pipe, thus impractical.
To conventionally provide the sound absorptive layer with a sufficient sound absorptive property, the thickness of the sound absorptive layer is required to be 10.0-20.0 mm or over, which is too thick to be conventionally used on a water pipe, thus impractical.
It will be readily appreciated that a conventional acoustic damping structure incorporating such a heavy and thick sound insulation layer and such a thick sound absorptive layer is impractical, though it may provide a satisfactory acoustic damping performance.
Accordingly, it is an object of the present invention to provide a laminated acoustic damping pipe cover which is lightweight, easy to manipulate and capable of providing an excellent acoustic damping performance.
It is another object of the present invention to provide a tubular acoustic damping pipe cover which is ready to be applied on a water pipe.
Other objects of the present invention will be appreciated from the description of this specification.
It should be noted that "pipes" used throughout the specification and claims such as a water supply pipe or water drainage pipe where the acoustic damping pipe cover of the present invention is to be applied are intended to include other types of pipes which produce sounds or noises that are desired to be reduced or damped.